


Borgsjö

by stella_polaris



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: F/M, Gen, Humor, IKEA Furniture, Post Season 3, don't we all love and hate it?, is this crack or?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 04:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stella_polaris/pseuds/stella_polaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders is helping Ty and Dawn with their new furniture. No one seems to think he's up for the task, though. And Anders is intent on proving them wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borgsjö

**Author's Note:**

> Aramirandme81 had a sentence about IKEA in One Word At A Time. In addition to that, I found myself wanting to write Anders attempting to set up IKEA furniture because the idea seemed priceless to me. 
> 
> I did some research and found out that NZ doesn't actually have any IKEA stores... they do, however, have several companies that import IKEA to NZ. So let's just imagine that's how they got the furniture. Because Dawn really seems like the type of person who likes IKEA!
> 
> The title of the fic is actually the name of an IKEA shelf, you can look it up if you want to.

“You do realize you owe me something for this, right?” Anders said and looked at the mess that was Ty’s and Dawn’s halfway furnished living room in their new house.

Ty looked up from the assembling manual of the table he had been studying. “Sure,” he muttered and looked back down at the little drawings and signs on the paper.

“Friday night… and I’m assembling furniture with my brother,” Anders continued his rant and took a swig of his beer.

“I haven’t actually seen you assemble anything yet,” Dawn commented as she entered the room. She’d been upstairs, unpacking boxes and putting stuff into shelves and wardrobes.

Ty snickered. “She’s right, you know… I mean I would’ve asked Mike to help since he’s a builder and all. But he’s on a date with Hanna,” he said.

Anders huffed and crossed his arms. “So you think I can’t do this? Okay… I’ll assemble this shelf then,” he said and pointed to one of the bigger packages on the floor.

Dawn picked up the manual. “This looks complicated, though,” she said and frowned at the instructions, trying to make sense of them.

“So what?”, Anders replied and snatched the manual from Dawn’s hands, “I’ll manage.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Yeah… I think I’ll just leave you guys to it and unpack some more boxes.”

Half an hour later found Anders sitting on the floor with every part of the shelf scattered around him. Ty had already assembled the table (which wasn’t all that hard, really, it only had the top and four table-legs) and two chairs in the meantime. Anders was still struggling with the shelf’s manual.

“Do you need help?” Ty offered with a side-glance at the additional chaos his brother had created.

“Nope,” Anders answered stubbornly and continued to squint at the weird little drawings. How was this supposed to tell anyone what to do?

“If you say so…” Ty replied just when Anders’ phone started ringing.

“Hey,” Anders answered, “… at Ty’s place, helping him with the furniture… stop laughing! … Yes, I’m actually assembling a shelf right now… Why are you calling? Miss me that much? … Of course, you only call me when you’re bored… Yeah, but it’s not really eventful here, either… God, you must be really bored then…” He hung up and flung the phone over towards the sofa.

“Michele’s coming over… she must be bored out of her mind,” Anders said to Ty.

“You spend a lot of time with her lately,” Ty commented casually.

Anders picked up the hex key and searched for the screws that went with it. “So?” he said as he peered into a smaller box that was supposed to hold all the screws.

“Nothing, I just noticed.” Of course that wasn’t what he had meant… but knowing Anders he wasn’t expecting a real answer anyway.

“Okay, I think I’ll just see what we have in the fridge and make us dinner for later,” Ty announced a moment later and put the second chair aside.

“Hmmkay,” was Anders’ reply while he didn’t even look up from the instruction in his hands. It was finally starting to make sense.

Anders had actually started to work in earnest at that point and when the doorbell rang  a while later, the shelf was starting to vaguely look like a shelf. Very vaguely. If you squinted.

Ty went to open the door and Michele entered the living room shortly later. “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d actually do some work,” she greeted Anders with an amused tone in her voice.

“You all have so much faith in me…” Anders said, raising his eyebrows as he looked at her.

Michele shrugged. “Must be some truth in it, then,” she said and smirked as she sat down on the sofa.

Michele picked up the manual from the floor and looked at it for a moment. Then she looked at Anders’ work so far… and back at the manual. She frowned.

“You do realize you’re doing it wrong?” she asked.

“What? No… give me that.” Anders took the manual back and looked at it again. Damn those little drawings and numbers… couldn’t they have written some text with it?

“It _is_ wrong, though.” Michele came over and pointed to step 4. “You put this part upside down.” She gestured to a part of the shelf that Anders had just screwed to another part a minute ago. “And this…” she pointed to another one, “… isn’t piece B. It’s piece F, you need that for later.”

Anders looked at his work. Well, it did look a bit odd, now that he thought about it… “Fuck,” he groaned.

Michele patted his shoulder. “Sorry to burst your bubble, master furniture assembler.”

“Why do you even know that stuff? How can anyone understand these?” Anders waved with the useless manual.

Michele chuckled. “I own the same shelf. And you’ve never done this before, have you?”

“No! When I bought my furniture, other people assembling it was included in the price. I mean if they want you to do it yourself, can’t they at least make the manual a little clearer? The next time Dawn insists on buying Swedish furniture, she can put it up herself.”

Michele shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I understand it… and now unscrew that damn part. I’ll search for the right one.”

Anders grudgingly set to work while Michele compared the pieces scattered on the floor with the drawing in the manual. They worked in silence for a while, Michele searching for the right pieces while Anders put them wherever they belonged.

At some point though, Michele opted for distracting Anders, rather than being helpful. She had been behind Anders, looking for a screw that seemed to be missing. Michele gave up the search and instead moved closer towards Anders.

 “This is boring…” she said quietly and started kissing Anders’ neck, “We should go to your place and do something more fun instead.”

Anders didn’t even look up. “You’re distracting me,” he said.

“I should hope so!”

“If I put another part upside down, it’ll be your fault.”

Michele rested her chin on Anders’ shoulder and smiled. “Oh, I’m that distracting, am I?”

“You know you are… but I promised Ty I’d help,” Anders said.

Michele sighed. “This is just as boring as sitting at home… remind me why I came here?”

“Because I’ll make up for it later?” Anders offered and grinned.

“I like the sound of that.” Michele nodded and then pointed to the shelf part Anders had in his hands. “You’re putting it in upside down again,” she said matter-of-factly.

“What? Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Anders dropped the piece. “Fucking piece of shit shelf,” he cursed.

Michele started laughing. “You’re really a hopeless case. Come on… let me do it.”

With combined efforts they managed to have the shelf up relatively quickly. Nothing was upside down, it didn’t look like it was going to fall apart again and no screws were left over. That seemed like a success.

“I’ve conquered the shelf! Take that, IKEA!” Anders said triumphantly.

“Oh, _you_ have?” Michele cut in, “You’d have been lost without me.”

“Fine… you helped,” Anders admitted, “… a bit.”

Michele hit him over the head with the manual. “You’re impossible.”

Anders laughed. “You knew that, though.”

Dawn peered into the room then. “I think dinner is going to be ready soon… oooh, we have a shelf!” She seemed clearly surprised as she looked at the shelf approvingly. “It looks nice!” She beamed.

“I told you I’d assemble it,” Anders said smugly.

“I might have underestimated your furniture assembling skills,” Dawn said but shared a look with Michele that made clear she knew that Anders wouldn’t have managed the task alone.

“I’m full of surprises.” Anders grinned.

Dawn chose to ignore that comment. “You two are staying for dinner, right?” she asked instead.

“I don-” Michele started but Anders cut her off. “Yeah, sure.” He nodded.

“Good!” Dawn smiled and left the room to join Ty in the kitchen. She missed the annoyed look that Michele threw at Anders.

“What about making up for my boredom?” she asked.

“Come on, it’s still early… and Ty’s a really good cook,” Anders replied. He pulled Michele close and kissed her deeply. “I still plan on making up for everything. I’ll put my tongue to good use in other places later…”

Michele chuckled quietly. “Save the dirty talk for later.  The things I put up with for a bit of sex…”

**

Meanwhile, Dawn was setting the table in the kitchen. “So…” she said to Ty, “Anders and Michele?”

“What about them exactly?” Ty asked and looked back over his shoulder at his girlfriend.

“I was just wondering… they act surprisingly much like-”

“A couple?” Ty suggested.

Dawn turned around and nodded. “Yeah. I was wondering if they are. I mean, I still don’t actually remember much from when you were… gods and goddesses. But even so, it seems so unlikely?”

“True… and I don’t think they’re a couple. But I doubt even _they_ know what exactly they are,” Ty said.

“You think so?”

“I’m pretty sure. Let them figure it out themselves.”

Dawn nodded and smiled. “You’re right. It’s none of our business… I’ll go and tell them dinner is ready.”


End file.
